Yes, but, you’ll have to agree in advance what proof looks like, otherwise you could just move the goalposts after the game.

Q. How come I have so much evidence that I’m right?

That’s confirmation bias. Your brain carefully files away all the reasons you might be right, and disregards all the reasons you might be wrong.

Q. How come so many people agree with me?

They’re wrong too.

Q. They can’t all be wrong, can they?

Most people are wrong about most things most of the time. If there’s one remarkable discovery to be made in the study of science, religion and philosophy, it’s that being wrong about almost everything does people so little harm. The fact that every scientific discovery since the stone age has only doubled our life expectancy is a cutting indictment of the futility of knowledge in the face of ignorance.

Q. What about the evidence that I should be right?

Those are mostly just reasons why it’s embarrassing that you’re wrong.

Q. What about the mathematical proof that I’m probably right?

That just means we should have been momentarily surprised that you were wrong. Total denial is not called for.

Q. Why has nobody told me this before?

Given the way you’re acting now, it’s hard to imagine anybody feeling like you might be anything but completely receptive to information relating to your wrongness.

Q. So what? I’m supposed to completely rethink everything I thought I knew?

Well, bumbling blindly got you this far, and we wouldn’t be exploring all our options unless we at least considered elective ignorance. Eternal darkness loses some of its lustre once you embark upon it willingly, though, so perhaps you should take comfort in the knowledge that you’re probably wrong about all sorts of other things, too.

Comments

It depends how you pronounce FAQ. If it’s a single word that rhymes with “back” then it’s “a FAQ” but if it’s three letters “EFF AY KEW” then it’s “an F.A.Q.”

Either is a bit clumsy: “A frequently asked questions” isn’t a lot more elegant than “an frequently asked questions” but the term has entered sufficiently common usage that it’s safe, in this context, to use it as a noun.

Aware that there would be some ambiguity over pronunciation, I put periods between the letters to give the reader a clue as to which of the two options was intended.

You’re both wrong because it’s more than one question. So not a singular “Frequently Asked Question” but plural “Frequently Asked Questions”. Neither “a” nor “an”. Now, you get to argue over FAQ vs. FAQs and whether or not FAQ is a collective noun for more than one question. Your time starts now…

My favourite line on this subject (from a Patrick O’Brian novel set in an era when duelling at dawn was the traditional manner of resolving a dispute) is “Pistols for two, coffee for one” but it seems in poor taste these days. Maybe it’ll have to be rock, paper, scissors.

“Q. What about the evidence that I should be right?
Those are mostly just reasons why it’s embarrassing that you’re wrong.”

Sorry for being dense, but I don’t quite get what this one is trying to say. Is it embarrassing for the Wrong person, as in “What you think of as evidence you’re right is actually evidence you’re wrong, and you should be embarrassed at how stupid you are for misinterpreting it”, or embarrassing in general, as in “Yes, you really should be right because X, but annoyingly and embarrassingly for everyone, you’re still wrong”?

Ok. This could be clearer. It’s a response to appeal to authority: “I’m an expert, so I should be right” doesn’t mean you really are right but if this is the sort of thing that you, as an expert, really ought to be right about, then you look like rather less of an expert if you turn out to be wrong.

There’s absolutely no wrong in it to be wrong as long as you don’t try not to be wrong all the time…hey lovely write up….something quirky and humorous as well as logical…you deserve FP… So I am following you

If we’re going to talk about being wrong about stuff, it would be strange to ignore religion. The major monotheistic religions present their single deity as the one true God with a single creation narrative and a sometimes self-contradictory set of rules to live by. Without taking a side here, these religions can’t all be right, so even if they’re not all wrong, most of them are. Unless, that is, we’re embracing a non-aristoteleian form of logic in which two contradictory statements can simultaneously be true, in which case everybody can be wrong about everything and still be right.

Oh nono I didn’t mean that, I completely agree with your take on religion – but presented in the argument along with science didn’t seem right. Scientific discovery and advancement is, in my view, exactly the opposite of religiosity. One of the most harmful and illogical vices to have crept up through evolution is religion. Science is combating the futility of our ignorant disposition while religion perpetuates it.

They’re all areas where we get to observe wrongness – sometimes in the search for truth, sometimes in the pigheaded pursuit of wrongness. Religion and science are not the same thing, but we do get to use the two words in the same sentence from time to time.

Fair enough – I agree with that. I just wouldn’t put them both in the context of discovery and true knowledge. But then again, that’s me. I am an atheist who adheres to Einsteinian religion and admires people like Dawkins and Hitchens.

Confirmation bias is the habit of only recognising evidence that supports a believe you already hold. It is an explanation for why somebody might believe something, but it doesn’t disprove that argument – it only explains how somebody can have ignored the evidence to the contrary.

The idea that everybody’s reality is right for them is a treacherous line to take. In the words of Harry G Frankfurt (On Truth, Pimlico, 2007):

“…societies cannot afford to tolerate anyone or anything that fosters a slovenly indifference to the distinction between true and false. Much less can they indulge the shabby, narcissistic pretense that being true to the facts is less important than being ‘true to oneself.’ If there is any attitude that is inherently antithetical to a decent and orderly social life, that is it.”

Frankfurt is good. He doesn’t mess about. He writes short books about big things, and he gets to the point. He goes on:

“A society that is recklessly and persistently remiss in any of these ways is bound to decline or, at least, to render itself culturally inert. It will certainly be incapable of any substantial achievement, and even of any coherent and prudent ambition.”

“Societies have never gotten along healthily, and cannot get along healthily, without large quantities of reliable factual information. The also cannot flourish if they are beset with troublesome infections of mistaken beliefs. To establish and to sustain an advanced culture, we need to avoid being debilitated either by error or by ignorance. We need to know – and, of course, we must also understand how to make productive use of – a great many truths”.

You see, I’m so sure that the sun exists that when somebody tells me it doesn’t, I don’t argue with them. I just smile, shake my head, sadly, and walk away.

Their belief, strange as it is, must serve them or they wouldn’t hold it. And if they are arguing with strangers, trying to get them to join their team, their team must be on shaky ground. Only the dubious proselytize, only the fearful require an army.

You’ve created a magical reality in which everybody’s truth is right for them, so of course you’re right. This one actually is a double-edged sword, though, because it means I’m right too, which is how come you’re wrong. You walked away just in time to not get trapped in your own circular argument. Or maybe you didn’t. Or perhaps both.

The trouble with “perception is reality” is that it replaces truth with sincerity. The upside is everybody gets to be right. The downside is the concept of truth becomes meaningless. This only seems like a good deal if you have a sneaking suspicion you were wrong in the first place.